


SEALs and Other Animals (Danny Did Not Have These Problems in Jersey)

by bgharison



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Poor Danny, coconut crabs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 03:27:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20108407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bgharison/pseuds/bgharison
Summary: The wildlife adventures of one beleaguered Detective Daniel Williams.





	SEALs and Other Animals (Danny Did Not Have These Problems in Jersey)

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter is fondly dedicated to my tumblr friends who never cease to inspire and enlighten me. Alas, I can not find the original coconut crab post that prompted this bit of fluff, but I am indebted to everyone who played.

“I don’t think it’s a case for Five-O,” Chin said, smiling fondly at Kono. She was practically vibrating as they came off the elevator.

“What’s not a case for Five-O?” Danny asked. It had been a relatively slow morning, for once, and he was standing with a hip propped against the tech table, dealing another round of solitaire in glorious HD.

“Coconut crab!” Kono exclaimed. “On Oahu!”

Steve came out of his office. “No way. Confirmed?”

Danny looked back and forth at them in confusion, then concern. “No. No, I don’t like it when the two of you look at each other that way, with that gleam in your eye. Usually I get shot. What the hell is so special about a coconut crab? This rock is crawling with crabs.”

“Not with these,” Chin said, arching a brow.

Kono’s fingers were flying over the table, without so much as a by-your-leave to Danny’s game.

“Hey,” he protested, both at the rude dismissal of a line up that had included two aces and a king, and at Steve’s crowding into his personal space. Kono ignored him and flicked an image onto the first plasma screen. “Oh, it’s got a pretty color,” Danny commented, looking at the obviously highly enlarged photo.

Steve jabbed a finger at another image and it popped up onto the second plasma.

“Sweet baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Danny breathed, grabbing onto the table. “It’s the size of a trash can. The crab. Is the size. Of the fucking trashcan.” He realized that Kono was staring at him, blinking. “What? The thing is huge. It’s alien.”

“No, it’s just -- I had the impression you were Jewish?” Kono said.

“I’m -- sometimes I am, it’s a long story and it’s not pertinent to the fact that there is a fucking trash can size crab roaming the streets of Oahu,” Danny said, gesturing wildly.

“I remember, Christmas break, when I was twelve,” Steve said. He was grinning like the absolute loon that he was. “Remember, Chin? They found that coconut crab in Honolulu?”

“I remember,” Chin said. “Made the news. We all hoped we’d find another one. Didn’t realize as kids, what kind of damage they would do. You know, this is the first one reported since then.”

“We gotta get in on this,” Kono insisted.

“I’m sure animal control is handling it just fine,” Chin said.

“Damn straight, animal control is gonna handle it,” Danny said.

Steve glanced between Kono and the plasma and hitched up his pants.

“No, Steven,” Danny said. He put one hand on his hip and pointed dramatically at the plasma. “Animal control. The zoo. The -- the people at Pearl Harbor.”

“The Navy,” Steve said absently, then grinned again. “Maybe the Naval Reserves. It’s an invasive species, Daniel. One that’s prized both for its meat and as a reputed aphrodisiac. We could be looking at a smuggling operation.”

“Yeah, totally,” Kono said, nodding vigorously in agreement.

Chin tilted his head at the screen. “That is a consideration.”

It was Steve and Kono’s fist bump that sealed their fate. Danny muttered a Hebrew prayer under his breath as the adrenaline twins dashed off to collect gear.

*****

One lead led to another, to another, and damn it if Steve hadn’t been right: it was a smuggling operation. Which was why Danny was standing in a cargo container surrounded by giant crabs from hell. There were three on the floor, two on the walls, and one, somehow, directly overhead. Suspicious clickity sounds from the back corners, in the shadows, indicated even more.

It looked like a scene from a Godzilla movie.

“Radiation? Did these things get blasted off Hiroshima?!” he yelled, scampering backwards as one of the crabs ambled toward him. Kono made a little tutting noise and tossed the crab a coconut. It grabbed for it and cracked it open, the noise reverberating off the sides of the cargo container. It sounded like the crunch of a bone, and Danny shuddered.

“Please, tell me the crab wranglers are on their way,” he muttered, glaring daggers at Steve. “And for gods sakes, put that thing DOWN.”

“Yeah, University of Hawaii biology department is sending a team over,” Steve said. He was admiring a smaller crab, this one just the size of a cat, as opposed to the Rottweiler sized one decimating the coconut at Danny’s feet.

Danny felt something brush against the back of his leg. Something hard. He heard a clicking sound.

“Screw this so hard, I hate you all,” Danny yelled.

“Their only natural predator is humans,” he heard Steve calling, as he stumbled out into the bright sunlight. An eager looking group of students clutching large cages was rushing toward the cargo container, lab coats flapping.

***

“That was something else. You don’t get to shut down an animal smuggling ring every day. Coconut crabs!” Steve said proudly, beaming at Danny. The case had finally been wrapped up, and Steve seemed to be basking in some sort of post-science-nerdery afterglow. Or maybe that was just the sunset. Sometimes it was hard to tell.

Danny narrowed his eyes and studied him more closely. No, there was definitely glowing.

“Not since 1989,” Steve said. Danny realized it was not, by a long shot, the first time Steve had seemed to stick on that fact.

“Yeah, not since you were twelve,” Danny said. “You’ve mentioned. Several times, in fact, babe.”

Steve shrugged and ducked his head. “It’s just . . . I’ve missed so much, you know? Leaving before my junior year . . . not coming back, I . . . I’ve missed a lot.”

“But not coconut crab sightings,” Danny said. “You were here, the last time this happened. And you’re here now. And you saved your island from a crab invasion. You did good.”

Steve laughed and shook his head. “It sounds stupid.”

“No. No, it doesn’t sound a bit stupid. And you know what? While you and Kono were secretly considering bringing one of those home -- don’t deny it, Steven -- and while I was narrowly avoiding being cracked open like a walnut --”

“A coconut,” Steve interjected smugly.

“Shut it -- Chin was videoing the entire fiasco. He shared it with me. You know what I think?”

“I know you’ll tell me.”

“I think you should call Mary when we get home. Call Mary, and we’ll show her the video. She was, what, ten the last time this happened?”

“Nine or ten, yeah,” Steve said. “I bet she remembers.”

“I bet she does. So, call her up, catch her up on the coconut crab happenings at the old homeplace. Bet she’d love to hear about it.”

“Yeah?” Steve asked, his face lit up and hopeful. “Yeah, I bet she would. I mean, that was pretty awesome. I’ve seen them in Guam, of course --”

“Oh, of course,” Danny muttered, rolling his eyes.

“Bet you’ve never seen anything like that on the boardwalk at the Jersey Shore, hunh Danny?”

“No. No,” Danny sighed, “I never had these kind of problems in Jersey.”

***


End file.
